Travel industry poised for comeback

In the past decade, airlines, hotels, cruises — and all that goes with them — have had to cope with everything from grounded planes after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to swine flu to volcanic ash to skyrocketing gasoline prices to a devastating economic slump — and now the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

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“I’m just waiting for the locusts to come down and start picking up people on the golf courses,” said Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association. “If people say that Sept. 11 was a perfect storm, I believe now that that was just partly cloudy with a chance of showers.”

The travel industry lost more than 400,000 jobs during the 2008 and 2009 fiscal years, dropped 37 percent in market share of global travelers after 1994 and had about 41 million Americans cancel their travel plans annually, according to the U.S. Travel Association. Commerce Department figures show that 633,000 fewer overseas travelers chose the United States as a destination in 2008 than in 2000.

But experts say the cloud hanging over the travel industry is showing signs of lifting — because of, in part, a helping hand from Congress.

The industry got a lift in March from Washington when President Barack Obama signed the Travel Promotion Act, which formed a national tourism board, among other things. The board is tasked with coordinating advertising and drumming up interest in travel to the U.S. from abroad and will also help streamline visa applications for overseas travelers.

“When international visitors come to the United States, they spend money on a wide range of goods and services that support U.S. jobs,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said when the Travel Promotion Act was signed. “Creating a global tourism promotion program to encourage international visitors to vacation in America will help spur economic growth and create more jobs.”

An independent analysis by Oxford Economics showed that the program has the potential to attract more than 1.6 million visitors from around the globe and more than $4 billion in additional consumer spending. Plus, it can create at least 40,000 jobs in the U.S. Moreover, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts the act will help cut the federal deficit by $425 million during the next decade.